Early Years Literacy in Indian Urban Schools: Structural, Social and Pedagogical Issues

Abstract

Literacy has been a crucial aspect of education as a human right for over 50 years, but this basic right remains unassured for at least 700 million adults worldwide. In 1999, UNESCO acknowledged that schools are not making the expected contribution to increasing national literacy rates or providing individuals with the literacy skills they need. The relationship between schooling and literacy is an acute issue in India: the absolute numbers of non-literate adults, many of whom have failed to become literate at school, continue to increase; and high proportions of children are not achieving adequately in literacy at school. The paper presents a socially situated examination, drawing in part on collaborative action research, of how a small sample of primary teachers approach literacy teaching and learning in socio-economic contexts of disadvantage. The paper identifies structural, social and pedagogical constraints to effective literacy teaching and learning in schools and in conclusion, draws out the implications for teacher development of a relative neglect of literacy teaching and learning in Indian vernacular languages.